


Dads and Mums

by orphan_account



Category: Sing (2016)
Genre: (Most of the guys in the gang didn't have names, So there's Pete- Stan- and Barry, for Straws, poly dads - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9322163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It never struck Johnny as weird that he didn’t have a mum.No, what was weird was that people didn’t have more dads.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Straws! I do hope you enjoy!

       It never struck Johnny as weird that he didn’t have a mum.

       No, what was _weird_ was that people didn’t have _more dads_.

       Little Johnny couldn’t imagine morning without waking up surrounded by biceps and bad breath. There was something comforting about being swathed on all sides by protective affection. Friends he made at preschool would tell him about their ‘big kid beds’ where they ‘slept alone’, or how some of them still slept with their daddy and a mummie. The later he could at least grasp, but the former- to sleep alone?

       Why?

       And what was so comforting about sleeping in a mum’s arms? His dad’s arms effectively swallowed him, something that he never saw happen when he watched mummys hug his classmates. Johnny did try to figure it out, he really did. He asked the other kids if their mummys would flex their muscles to teach them about the body, would ask if they gave noogies with boxing gloves and wipe faces with hand sanitizer, but no dice. Apparently, mummys didn’t work that way.

       “Mommys don’t flex, they make pancakes.”

       “My Daddy Barry flexes and makes pancakes.”

       “Mommys don’t give noogies, they watch cartoons with you.”

       “My Daddy Pete gives noogies when we watch Batman.”

       And the one time Johnny tried to wipe a kid’s face with hand sanitizer, claiming, “This is how my Daddy Stan does it,” there was a call home.

       At lunch, his friends would pull out sandwiches with little sticky notes attached saying, ‘Have a good day, love Mom’, while the sticky notes on his sandwiches always read, ‘Have a good day, love Everybody.’ There was only one kid who ever asked him about it but, Johnny reasoned, “Getting love from one person is nice. Getting love from three is better.”

       “My Dad loves me too!”

       “Then why doesn’t he say so in your lunches?”

       “Because my Mom makes my lunches. Moms are supposed to make lunches, not dads.”

       “My Daddy Barry makes my lunch, and everyone takes turns writing my sticky. Why doesn’t your daddy just write your sticky from both your mummy and him?”

       Johnny never knew what happened between that conversation and the next day. All he saw was that, suddenly, all of the kids in his preschool class were crowding around him at lunch trying to figure out who actually made his sandwich.

       “Are you sure one of your daddys isn’t a mommy?”

       “Yes.”

       “Are you sure your daddy’s actually make your lunch?”

       “It’s Daddy Barry that makes my lunches because he’s the only one that knows how much peanutbutter I like.”

       “Who wrote your sticky today?”

       “That’s Daddy Stan’s handwriting. He does the funny ‘a’s.”

       “How did you get your dad to make your lunch?”

       “They just do.”

       It was weird, talking to his classmates about his dads. He couldn’t figure out a world in which helping Daddy Barry make pancakes and practicing boxing didn’t exist, couldn’t fathom an afternoon not watching cartoons or playing cars with Daddy Stan, and, quite frankly, did not even wish to try to think of a place where he was not allowed to fall asleep on Daddy Pete’s chest. Johnny couldn’t wrap his head around houses that smelled like flowers and bathrooms with little pink carpets on top of the toilets, which is what seemed to be the case with the other kids who had mummys.

       When one of the kids mentioned that their mummy liked candles though, Johnny perked up.

       “My Daddy Barry likes candles!”

       “Really? My Mommy gets the ones that smell like flowers. Are your daddy’s candles like that?”

       “No. His smell like Christmas trees.”

       The kid had laughed, “My mommy likes those too! Are you sure your daddy isn’t a mommy?”

       Yes, Johnny was sure. Johnny told them he was sure. Johnny was absolutely positive that his daddy was a daddy.

       Until, slowly, he wasn’t anymore.

       Johnny watched his dads closely after that, watched as they laughed and hugged and wrestled and held hands. He tried to imagine two of them, just two, which he could do if he really tried (if only on Saturdays, when Daddy Pete still had to go into work). Johnny could imagine living with just Daddy Stan and Daddy Barry. The house wasn’t as full, no, or as loud, but he could have done it. Picturing Daddy Barry as a mommy tough, that was asking too much. It simply could not be done.

       And yet…and yet…

       It never occurred to him to talk to them about it, but as Daddy Barry strapped him in his car seat one afternoon and asked, “Did you learn a lot?” it suddenly occurred to him that no, he hadn’t.

       Johnny didn’t feel like he had learned anything, he just felt confused.

       “Daddy Barry?”

       “Yeah?”

       “You make sandwiches.”

       His dad had stopped then, resting on the frame of the car as he looked Johnny in the eye, “Yes?”

       “And…,” Johnny squirmed, looking down to fiddle with the buckle of the car seat, “And you make pancakes.”

       “Yes.”

       “And you like candles.”

       “Yes.”

       “…Are you a mommy?”

       Johnny didn’t look up when he heard the sharp gasp, he just tightened his hold on the buckle and hoped that whatever came next wouldn’t make him cry.

       “Why are you askin’ me this?”

       “Because,” he took a deep breath, “because the other kids have mummys, and their mummys make sandwiches and have candles and write stickies, and that’s all the stuff you do. They say that there’s all kinds of things that daddys can do that mummys can’t and things that mummys do that daddy’s can’t. You do all that stuff though and I don’t understand why their daddys won’t do it and I don’t get how come they don’t have more daddys and they don’t understand why I don’t have a mummy and someone called you my mummy and I don’t understand.”

       “…Johnny, look at me, would ya?”

       Johnny shook his head.

       “Please.”

       Johnny shook his head again.

       There was a sigh. It smelled of baloney and onions.

       “Dads…dads don’t have to be that different from mums, if they don’t want to be. Mums don’t have to be that different from dads either.”

       Johnny did look up at that, and found himself pinned to his seat by the warm, hard stare of his father.  

       “Dads and mums are just the names of people that love their kids. They’re most alike in that. It doesn’t matter who makes sandwiches or who doesn’t. What matters is that they love.”

       Daddy Barry sat on the floor of the car, resting a giant hand on Johnny’s knee, “Did I ever tell you how I grew up with just a mum?”

       Johnny gasped, “Was it lonely? Was it lonely with just a mummy?”

       His father chuckled, “Didn’t feel like it.Was just my mum and I, for years. Never had anybody else, and never needed them either. Just her and me. She made all my sandwiches and taught me how to box, just like I’ve made all of your sandwiches and am trying to teach you how to box. You get it? No? Okay, let me try this way.”

       Daddy Barry shifted closer, “You and I, we like playing cars, and Batman, and making pancakes, yeah?”

       Johnny nodded.

       “Okay now see, most people would think that making pancakes is a mum thing to do, but you do it, and I do it. Now, we’re not mums, are we?”

       Johnny shook his head.

       “So are we mums just because we like making pancakes, regardless of everything else?”

       Johnny shook his head again.

       “And are we dads just because we like playing cars and Batman?”

       He had to think on that one for a moment, but after a while, he shook his head again.

       “So we’re just people that happen to like all three of those things, yeah?”

       “But-!” Johnny protested, “but then, what’s the difference between a mummy and a daddy?”

       Daddy Barry smiled, “Not much. ‘S just a name kid, like I told ya. What matters is that they love,” and as he placed a kiss on Johnny’s forehead, he said, “and I love you very much, as do Daddy Stan and Pete, so I think that settles it.”


End file.
